Today I made mashed potatoes from scratch. Quite an accomplishment really. When I still lived with my parents my mother made them on a fairly regular basis, but usually the only contribution I made was making sure the potatoes were good and peeled. Basically she gave me the job she didn’t like to do. Today, however, was an entirely different story. I did the whole thing myself, I even got out the wriggly looking potato masher that has been silently sitting unused in one of my kitchen drawers for the past two years. And I have to say that even though I didn’t really have much of a clue about what I was doing, my mashed potatoes came out tasting delicious and were better than I remember my mother’s being. (Sorry mom. There are some things I do better than you.) They were remarkably fluffy and lump-free.